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After a dismal couple of years, coal companies look like they finally may have bottomed out. Despite these signs, not all miners are ready to claw their way to profits.

Power-plant coal has suffered over the past year as decade-low natural-gas prices prompted many utilities to switch from coal.

However, analysts with Goldman Sachs last month forecast a pickup in U.S. demand for power-plant coal this year. Prices for U.S. natural gas are up 38% from a year ago, likely pointing to an increase in utilities' appetite for coal, the analysts wrote. The Dow Jones U.S. Coal Index, which tracks U.S.-based coal companies, is up 10% from its September lows.

But investors are playing with fire if they bet that battered power-plant-coal-mining shares are ready to sizzle.

"It doesn't look like it's going to happen this year," said Mark Levin, a coal analyst with BB&T Capital Markets.

U.S. coal stockpiles are still high, 19% above the five-year average, according to Energy Information Administration estimates, giving utilities room to lean on inventories before returning to mining companies for more.

Also, Goldman's relatively upbeat forecast calls for Appalachian coal prices to average just $60 a short ton this year, equal to current spot prices. Even after coal companies slashed output production by 7% in an effort to return to profitability, that's well below the break-even point for most power-plant coal mined in the region, Levin said.

Investors looking for a rebound in the coal sector this year, analysts say, should forget about companies that mine power-plant coal—and turn up the heat on those that produce the other major variety of coal, metallurgical, which is used in steel-making.

While the global steel industry is running slower than its prerecession peak in much of the world, record Chinese steel production has been enough to prop up coal demand and prices.

Steel-making coal prices at Australia's main export hub, a benchmark for the industry, are up 21% from their lows late last year, to $154 a ton. Chinese imports doubled in January from year-earlier levels, to 6.48 million tons.

Teck, the world's second-largest exporter of metallurgical coal, "is well positioned to benefit from the rebound" in coal, BMO analysts wrote. The company also produces copper, another commodity that China imports in vast quantities.

U.S.-based
Walter Energy
(WLT) is about as close as a company comes to exclusively producing metallurgical coal. But its mines, located the U.S. and Canada, face high shipping costs to get the fuel to coal-hungry Asia.

Peabody Energy
(BTU), the largest publicly traded coal company, is better positioned on that front. The St. Louis-headquartered company has the largest Australian presence of any U.S. coal-mining company, and last year its operations down under accounted for 43% of sales.

"While the U.S. market is declining, most of the increased demand is going to come from Asia," Levin said. "Peabody is uniquely situated to serve that demand."